Archives For
spring

Early summer in the Dwarf Conifer Garden is all about the new growth. Everything is bursting forth with fresh new growth in vivid shades of green, chartreuse, yellow…and blue!

Layers of color draw you into hidden paths throughout the Dwarf Conifer Garden.

Many of the trees feature entirely unexpected colors. For most of the year, Spring Ghost blue spruce (Picea pungens ‘Spring Ghost’) looks like your average Colorado spruce. From early spring through midsummer, however, the tips of every branch shine with the palest yellow—nearly white—new growth. Likewise, Taylor’s Sunburst lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta ‘Taylor’s Sunburst’) is a handsome green tree for most of the year—until spring, when radiant yellow new growth bursts forth, bringing a welcome dose of sunshine to the garden.

Picea pungens ‘Spring Ghost’

Pinus contorta ‘Taylor’s Sunburst’

Pinus cembra ‘Blue Mound’

New needles aren’t the only attraction this time of year. Many conifers have cones that start out in surprising shades! Blue Mound Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra ‘Blue Mound’) would be a beautiful plant in its own right, with its long, soft, blue-green needles. But when you throw in dusky purple cones, you get a plant that is truly a gem. As the cones age, they’ll slowly turn into the more typical brown of a ripe cone, but right now, they’re as pretty as any flower.

Red can be a difficult color to find in conifers, but Acrocona spruce (Picea abies ‘Acrocona’) has cones that start out a vivid ruby red and slowly fade to a soft tan. The cones start out upward-facing, but slowly begin to droop as they age.

Another unique plant is Silver Show dwarf Korean fir (Abies koreana ‘Silver Show’). Unlike other conifers, the firs (Abies sp.) have cones that always face upward. ‘Silver Show’ is beautiful any time of the year, but its purple upward-facing cones really make it special in spring. The cones start out small and green, but as you can see in this picture, they begin to turn purple as they grow until you’re left with dozens of dark purple cones set against perfectly tiered, silvery green foliage. There really is nothing else like it in the Garden.

Male cones on Pinus leucodermis

On most conifers, it’s the female cones that are most showy and most often noticed, but on Bosnian pine (Pinus leucodermis), it’s the male (pollen-bearing) cones that steal the show. Arranged in groups at the end of every branch, they light up the tree like little Christmas lights. Even on a gloomy day, the bright orangey-tan color stands out against some of the deepest green needles in the garden.

All of these colors are a seasonal show that is best appreciated before things start to heat up for the summer, so now is your best time to come see them!

Have you heard the sounds coming from nearby lakes, ponds, and puddles this month? The American toads are singing!

This female American toad may be listening for the enchanting song from a handsome male toad.

Every spring, the toads emerge from hibernation in wooded areas and hop to the nearest standing water to breed. The sound you hear comes from the males, who are singing to attract a mate. You’ll hear the sound of hundreds of toads at the Kleinman Family Cove for the next week or so, maybe longer.

The toads will pair up and lay a string of eggs in shallow water where it is warmest and rich in food for their offspring. After laying eggs, the adults will return to the woods or shady gardens to look for food, leaving their babies to fend for themselves.

The black lines of dots in the water are strings of eggs that were laid by the toad on the right.

The black embryo inside each egg will grow into tiny tadpoles and hatch in about a week. They will grow and develop into half-inch toadlets over the next few weeks. Then they will leave the water and join their parents in the shady gardens and woods. With any luck, some of them will survive the next two years, developing to full maturity, and return to the Cove to breed.

This is the only time of year to hear the toads singing, so visit the Cove this month. If you visit over the next four weeks, maybe you’ll see some little black tadpoles swimming in the water.

Please resist the urge to collect them to take home. You won’t be able to provide enough of the right kind of food for a growing tadpole or toadlet, and they will die. Watch them grow up successfully in their natural habitat at the Cove throughout the month of May and early June instead!

This year, it sure felt like spring was a long time coming — especially compared to last year when it seemed that we went straight into summer! I wonder how the wildflower timing of spring compared to previous years in the Chicago area…

Mayapples, April 25, 2012

Mayapples, May 2, 2013

For several years now, I’ve been working on a web-based citizen scientist project, called Project BudBurst, with colleagues at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). We study the phenology — the timing of natural events like blooming, fruiting, and leaf fall — of plants around the country. Our participants track when plants bloom in their area, and we compare the reports to records from other parts of the country.

For instance, I’ve been tracking when the first forsythia flower opens on the plants near the Garden’s front gate since 2007. The earliest bloom I have on record in that time was last year, on March 15, 2012. The latest first flower for this specimen was this year, on April 20, 2013. In 2007 and 2008, however, we also had first flowers in mid-April (April 16, 2007, and April 17, 2008, respectively). So, as we look back in time, this year’s bloom time doesn’t feel quite so late. In the graph below we show the variation in flowering dates (using Julian dates, which standardize for differences in dates between nonleap and leap years).

In the Chicago area, we have a wealth of phenology data collected by the authors of our local flora, Plants of the Chicago Region by Swink and Wilhelm (1994). While they were gathering data for their book, they recorded when they saw plants in bloom from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. They record the forsythia bloom period as April 25 to May 5. So, when we look still further back in time, our “late” spring is much earlier than it has been in the past.

I took a similar look at several other species, both native and nonnative, for which we have both Project BudBurst data and data from Swink and Wilhelm’s book. About 70 percent of the species have earlier flowering dates in the last six years compared to those recorded by Swink and Wilhelm. Some of the species that have advanced their flowering dates are in the table below.

Species

Earliest First Flower Observations

Common nameGenus species

Swink & Wilhelm 1950s – 1990s

Project BudBurst2007 – 2012

Days Advanced

ForsythiaForsythia x intermedia

April 25

March 15

-40

SpiderwortTradescantia ohiensis

May 14

April 12

-32

Dogtooth violetErythronium americanum

April 6

March 20

-17

Red MapleAcer rubrum

March 20

March 6

-14

MayapplePodophyllum peltatum

May 1

April 17

-13

LilacSyringa vulgaris

May 3

March 20

-44

Black locustRobinia pseudoacacia

May 9

April 20

-19

Bradford pearPyrus calleryana

April 15

April 13

-2

Plant phenology, particularly when plants leaf out and bloom in the spring, is remarkably sensitive to the annual weather. Looking at phenological records over much longer periods of time can tell us a lot about how the climate is changing. Many scientists are comparing contemporary bloom times with historic bloom times recorded by naturalists like Aldo Leopold in the early 1900s, and Henry David Thoreau in the mid 1800s, as well as records kept by farmers, gardeners, and others interested in the natural world. Two of the longest phenological data sets are those maintained for cherry blossoms in Japan (dating back to 900 AD) and for grape harvest dates by winemakers in Switzerland (dating back to 1480 AD).

Spring is now in full glory at the Chicago Botanic Garden, prompting us to show you the best gardens to visit right now, and hinting at what is yet to come.

We toured the Garden with Boyce Tankersley, director of plant documentation, to get some tips for making the most of your visit. Hint, hint — the crabapples are set to open this weekend, and the effect of over 200 crabapple trees in bloom along the shores of the Gardens of the Great Basin is a sight not to miss! Plus, it’s a great opportunity to try our new app!

Watch the video above to hear Tankersley offer tips to maximize your visit with our new smartphone Garden app, called GardenGuide. The app is designed to enhance and enrich your Garden visit. Using the GPS technology in your smartphone, GardenGuide will guide you to any plant or point of interest with an interactive map. Use it at home as well — the features work without GPS.

Find it

Have you ever wanted to know more about a plant you loved on your visit? Are you looking for information on a plant you want to see as you stroll the Garden today? Use the “Find” feature to pull up stunning photos or gardening information about the 2,524,687 plants in the collections database. Enter the common or Latin name, and GardenGuide will pinpoint both the plant’s location and your location so you can walk to it. A touch on the plant name will display gardening information. You can also search by plant characteristics to find types of plants. For example, is it purple, flowering, perennial, or does it have a preference for partial shade? Save the results to a favorite list for future reference, or share your plant favorites on Facebook or e-mail.

Plan your visit

Visiting with small children or a group? Use the GardenGuide to find water fountains and restrooms among other features, or to see what events are happening at the Garden during your visit. Check the Garden app for what’s in bloom, to see our event schedule, or check our open hours.

Let us guide your walk today!

Use the Garden app to learn more about featured gardens with audio tours by Kris Jarantoski, executive vice president and director of the Garden. Try a curated walking tour of our most popular display gardens. Every tour stop is accompanied by interpretation of that location. Try a 14-stop tour of the English Walled Garden, a 16-stop tour of the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Japanese Garden, a four-season photo tour, a bird-watching tour, tours for families, or a fitness walk.